Pedro Almodóvar

This selection of films by Pedro Almodóvar, the singular Spanish auteur, captures the breadth of his distinct oeuvre. Always urgent, irreverent, and inventive, Almodóvar elevates the quotidian to the sublime. His filmmaking style is so distinctive—from his use of color and precise shots to his melding of madcap comedies, melodrama, and forays into the realm of campy soap operas—that “Almodóvarean” is now an accepted adjective.

Almodóvar came of age as an artist during Spain’s tumultuous, post-Francoist transitional years and became a fixture on the Madrid underground scene known as “La Movida Madrileña.” His work is both grounded in a global literary and cinematographic tradition and firmly entrenched in Spanish culture. Alongside references to Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Tennessee Williams, and of course his compatriot, Luis Buñuel, Almodóvar’s cinematic world is populated with bullfighters, gazpacho, and a myriad of distinctly Spanish characters.

With plot lines that are simultaneously melodramatic, tragic, and hilarious, Almodóvar has us laughing at situations that should make us gasp or cry. Imbued with empathy and warmth, his films mine the enigmas of the human experience to arrive at a larger truth that accepts that humanity is composed of contradictions.